 |
| |
CostPerform presents a best in class tool and an innovative approach to developing business
models designed for performance improvement |
| |
|
Every organisation wants to improve performance. The private sector seeks a sustainable level of profitability. The public sector seeks to provide its services in a more efficient and effective manner. |
Managers are on a constant lookout for: |
 |
Process improvements, |
|
A means for determining which products and services are most significant for the future, as differentiated from those that are at the end of their usefulness, and |
|
Strategies for determining how the organisation can deliver desired outputs and outcomes at the lowest cost. |
| |
| |
|
The key question for the executive is, “How do I best approach performance improvement?” We believe the answer resides in performance efficiency and effectiveness information that is clear and consistent and that information is provided in a manner that supports decision-making. It is essential for decision-makers to know the costs of delivering their products and services and to be able to immediately isolate the costs of individual business processes that comprise those costs. This information, when combined with timeliness, customer satisfaction, customer quality and customer value, allow the manager to analyse their product and service portfolio and readily resolve issues that impede program performance and service delivery. |
| |
| |
|
CostPerform is a software and analytical methodology designed to deliver such information to decision-makers. The CostPerform offering is steeped in process cost modelling, which represents a significant, evolutionary improvement over traditional activity-based costing (ABC). CostPerform accrues many benefits to the decision-maker. For example, CostPerform: |
| |
|
Reports product and process costs in tabular or graphic format, including comparisons across geographic locations or over time. This capability allows information to be communicated via familiar reports or charts and graphics. |
|
Reflects how the organisation works and how its business gets done by modelling the unique processes by which products and services are produced and delivered. |
|
Produces results in sensible time scales. |
|
Produces reports on product costs, and profitability that can be formatted, distributed and manipulated over the web. Additional data on customers’ perception of timeliness, quality and value can be incorporated as desired. CostPerform reports allow users to drill-down to greater levels of detail where detail is most relevant. |
| |
|
|
Reports product and business process costs in a manner that enables an organisation to “reach back” into past periods and accurately produce budget forecasts for future periods based on projected product volumes and process productivities, and; |
| |
|
|
Identifies and quantifies capacity overages and constraints for all projection scenarios. |
| |
| |
CostPerform features enable Performance Improvement and Product/Customer Profitability
Improvement in three critical ways |
| |
|
1. CostPerform communicates relevant information clearly to executives and managers |
| Web-based reporting and graphics features for clear communication |
| |
| |
|
Interactive web-based drill-down model reports are useful for managers, model builders, and customer analysts. Reports are standard and custom designed through a wizard. Graphical chart views of data and information is easy and repeatable in both model screens and reports. Key measures can be viewed regularly and web-based reports and views allow for virtual performance management sessions. |
| |
| |
|
The example below illustrates how the client organisation used the model to understand and communicate through the software browser the direct, shared (indirect services such as IT), and sustaining (indirect pure overhead such as executive management) components of costs. In the same browser, the client organisation can see and understand product/service volume flows, including attrition (losses) in this sample recruitment model.
|
 |
| |
| |
|
Using the same sample recruitment model, the following graphical features which can be viewed in the software as a saved view or in a report as a printed or web-based file, shows various cost and non-financial metrics. For instance, the client organisation was able to understand cost per recruit across various regions, as well as productivity per recruiters across various regions.
|
 |
| |
|
|
| 2. CostPerform allows you to model exactly how your organisation works by qanalysing production flows |
| Build models that fit the business – (Sections or Layers tailored to reflect production points of Product/Service flow) |
| |
| |
|
Flexibility of structuring the model enables a more accurate depiction of your organisation's processes and outputs. A business model that reflects reality must be able to communicate what is going on at each stage of an output's production. Additionally, flexible model architecture or design allows business models to report overhead, interdepartmental services, and direct activity components of each process, product or service cost separately and simultaneously. |
| |
| |
|
The following graphic from the sample recruitment model illustrates how a client organisation can design a model that communicates cost and product/service flow simultaneously, and at each stage of a product/service lifecycle, from resources, processes, direct costs (without overhead), and with overhead and shared services layered on to the point of customer delivery.
|
 |
| |
|
Actual and Unit Cost visibility at each stage of Product/Service (Output) flow |
| |
| |
|
Total and unit costs are visible throughout the various product/service stages, to enable viewing cost with and without overhead, and at each level or stage of product/service flow. Additionally, consumption rates (pull) or fixed costs (push) drivers may be used through a single interface to more precisely model business complexity. This enables a more precise knowledge of what processes vary by service levels, what processes vary by process levels, and what processes remain fixed. |
| |
| |
|
The following graphic from the sample recruitment model illustrates how multiple cost drivers and calculation rules can be used within the same model for various components of a process.
|
 |
| |
| |
|
Using the same model, the following illustration shows how total and unit costs are visible at each stage of a product/ service flow.
|
 |
| |
|
|
| |
|
3. CostPerform produces accurate Product and Process service costs for past periods and enables streamlined "What-If" scenario projections and forecasting (By varying product quantity and productivity assumptions you can analyse budget and capacity impacts) |
Dashboards that monitor key metrics, and project/forecast impacts on organisational resources, processes, and outputs |
| |
| |
|
Historical models and planning models that enable projections and forecasting are easily developed to allow an organisation to both understand process and output costs, and to analyse productivity, profitability, and performance improvement. This is powerful feature that enables capacity and output volume "what-if" scenarios. |
| |
| |
|
The following graphic illustrates how certain model variables (i.e., capacity, productivity, resource costs, output volume) can be viewed in a dashboard interface and varied to analyse impact on costs, processes, and outputs.
|
 |
| |
| |
|
The following graphic illustrates how input variables can be designed within the model to test them for use in a dashboard. Productivity and attrition are key variables in this client model and the model was designed to test the impact of these variables on organisational resources, process costs, and outputs: |
| |
| |
|
The following graphic from the sample recruitment model illustrates how multiple cost drivers and calculation rules can be used within the same model for various components of a process.
|
 |
| |
|
|
